January 31st 2007
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Life, News, Technology
So, Microsoft’s next version of its popular Windows operating system, Vista, has officially been released. Hundreds of millions on pounds have been spent in the UK alone advertising and promoting it and Bill Gates certainly seems very excited about it. But, is all the hype about Vista really going to encourage people to buy it? Is all the over-promotion going to make consumers look past the hefty price tag, costly minimum requirements and insane restrictions applied to the software? My opinion says yes.
Windows Vista has been five years in the making with over 1 billion beta testers during this time and 140 families from seven countries helping to make Vista the most tested operating system ever made by Microsoft. It’s the safest operating system they’ve ever made and probably the operating system that has been in the public spotlight the most. Vista has relatively high hardware requirements to run its most advertised features such as the Aero theme and it’s Media Centre add-on.
Sky’s the Price
There are several different versions of Windows Vista - and even more here in Europe (N versions) - and each has their own feature set. There’s Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate each increasing in price and features. A comparison chart can be found at the official website. The prices for retail editions range from £180 for Home Basic up to £370 for Ultimate. I personally will not be paying over £300 for an operating system and I don’t think the average consumer would knowingly either. The average consumer would just have bought a new computer, most likely especially for Vista, and spending maybe half of the new systems cost on the operating system seems insane to me.
Unlike most consumers, I know about OEM versions of the operating system. Although, as with XP, there is a severe limitation on how many times you can install the software, the price is under half of the retail price - a very good incentive. But, as you can only install it on one computer it means that the computer I install it on would have to be a new one. This is the main reason why I have no plans to purchase Vista just yet.
Hefty Requirements
Vista demands more from the hardware than ever before with the recommended requirements now pushing up the standard configuration you’ll find in laptops and desktops you can buy in high street shops. This also means increased prices for the average consumer - he or she won’t build their own computer; they’re more likely to turn to Dell or take a trip down to their local PC World store or Currys.
Most computers bought in the last three or four years will run Vista without a sweat but for those without a computer or those with computers that are not up to the challenge will either have to buy a brand new computer or upgrade their current configuration - most consumers won’t consider upgrading it themselves and most will see buying a new system as the easiest and sometimes cheapest option although this is not always the case.
Brainwashed Buyers
Microsoft have made a lot of public fuss about Vista and by rights they should be able to celebrate a project that has finally materialised after over five years of development. I feel though that there is a more sinister objective in Microsoft’s efforts to spread the word. The aim for every business is to maximise their profits and I think that Microsoft is sort of pushing information at its discretion into the public’s ear. 
For example if consumers do buy from a company such as Dell or Ginger6 then they cannot reinstall Vista on a different computer due to the restrictions on it. Consumers seem to not know this and when the time comes, they’re going to wonder why they ever spent £300 on it.
My Thoughts
There are several reasons why I have no plans to buy Vista in the near future. Personally, the price isn’t really an issue with me. I would go and buy an OEM version of Home Premium or Ultimate tomorrow but my main reasons lay with my current hardware configuration. I don’t want to buy Vista and install it on a computer that I think isn’t quite up to the job. My current rig will run Vista, as I have been doing with a few of the beta versions, but I don’t want to install it on outdated hardware.
Vista seems to have me asking myself whether to buy a new computer system or upgrade my current one. I don’t know why I am even asking myself this as I have a perfectly good computer that does what I need it to do and more. There are not much benefits to upgrading to Vista and those that do make it worth while can be achieved on XP with a little extra work.
Microsoft’s made a big effort to get the word out about Vista and I think all their marketing efforts will be rewarded but I fear that spending £370 on an operating system that is to be eclipsed by the next version in 5 years time is just not worth it. Spending maybe £500 on a new computer just for Vista isn’t worth it - there has to be some other reason too, not just because you want Vista.
January 21st 2007
Internet, Life
Christmas 2006 saw the biggest amount of money ever spent on shopping over the internet than ever before here in the UK. Approximately £7.7bn was spent up to and over the Christmas period last year - an increase of over 50% from 2005. This increase in online activity was covered by most news programmes as well and sparked my interest earlier in the year. Why has online spending increased so much in just a year and what advantages does going online have over going down to your local high street stores?
Internet Adoption
As I said in a previous article, adoption of broadband internet access here in the UK has been increasing rapidly over the last couple years. BT has over 10 million broadband subscribers alone. Soon, broadband adoption here in the UK will surpass that in the US - we’ve gone online crazy. Why have we welcomed broadband access with open arms?
Broadband internet access has become a lot cheaper and a lot faster. Consumers are now being treated to speeds as fast as 24mbps in the home starting from just £14 a month. Speeds like this and costs like this mean more people can afford to get them and so more people now have access to online shops. Prices have come down because 2006 was a year of competition between companies. The year brought news of mergers such as that between NTL and Telewest and also news of new players in the market such as Sky and the Carphone Warehouse. All this activity and competition has lead to reduced prices and more choice for consumers.
Consumer Trust
Last year was also a year where security was a major issue. 2006 was a turning point where banks no longer accepted signatures when processing card transactions and ‘Chip & Pin’ became the standard verification method. This, I believe, also lead to an increase in the security that online shops provided when buying goods. Anyone who’s ever shopped online before knows that the padlock icon is something we trust and look out for. We’re becoming more liberal with our card details online. Another factor has been the increased usage of online banking - I use it myself - and the usage of sites such as PayPal to manage money.
Online Advantages
Besides the increased ability to access the online shops now, there are some major advantages to shopping online. Firstly there’s the fact that normally, goods cost less online. Secondly, you’re restricted to what shops you have near you if you shop in person. Online you have the pick of all the shops you could want which means you can get the best deal and not just settle for what you’ve got.
Usually, goods to cost less online. For example if you went into a PC World store (hypothetically) you’d pad a lot more for some products than if you shopped on their website. This is because they offer ‘web-only’ exclusive prices. Another example is video games. Take the collector’s edition of Lost Planet for the Xbox 360. Down your local shops it would probably cost you between £45 and £50 but online the price could be as low as £37.50 if you search in the right place. Also, loads of places now such as Play will deliver your item for free.
All these incentives add together to provide a cheap method of getting the item you want and quickly.
Final Thoughts
I’d say I do 3/4 of my shopping online. If I need something for school, food, clothes or if I want a DVD then I generally go down my local shopping centre or to one in a nearby city because the price difference isn’t worth worrying about. But items such as electronics, books and music require me to get them online. Online, these goods can be found much cheaper and my personal experience has been that returning goods to online retailers has been much more pleasant than returning them to high street stores.
£7.7bn over two and a bit months. I can’t even imagine that sort of money. The problem is that as we continue to spend more and more money over the ‘tubes’ we’re going to become less cautious and fraud is going to increase a lot. As long as we keep a mix of spending online and down the high street I think we’ll be okay.
January 15th 2007
Internet, Life, Technology
Today I came across a search service that I’d never heard about before. Although it was pointed out to me as a way of completing my ICT task with ease, ChaCha has got my attention and has fascinated me. ChaCha gives you the option to search the web with a guide - another person who is payed to quickly assist you in your quest to find what you want. I don’t know of any other service that actually puts you in contact with another human who will help you search - and for free. There’s also the option just to search the web normally but I think in some situations, ChaCha could be an invaluable tool for some people with little time and with little patience.
About ChaCha
ChaCha was launched late last year and has grown to a company with thousands of guides. The basic principle of it is that you search for whatever and you’re connected to a guide who is experienced in searching on that particular topic. He or she provides a number of links for you which they deem most likely to be what you want. When you’ve got the information you wanted, you then have to rate the guide - either good, okay or bad. Hence why they’ll always be nice to you. This service is free.
The ChaCha Experience
I’ve been playing with ChaCha for a few hours now and I am a little impressed with the service. When I first used it I thought that it would be much easier just to search for the things myself. Although this was true in some respects, in others it wasn’t. The times when the service was most useful was when I was searching for a particular type of document or a website for a company or organisation that isn’t well known. I tried searching for the same things with Google and it took me quite a bit longer to find the same documents they had provided me. Other requests such as the website for Dell and Microsoft was a waste of time.
All the guides that I used were very friendly and actually used proper English unlike other live chat applications I’ve used (ahem Dell, Linksys). Another plus about this service is that is leaves you to do other things while the guide is fetching your results. This could be particularly useful in the workplace and I found it useful searching for sample business plans during ICT class.
Final Thoughts
As it’s a free service, it must get most, if not all, of it’s earnings from advertising displayed next to the search results. This, I would imagine, would not provide a lot of money for them so I think that there will have to be a limit to the number of guides they hire. At $5 to $10 an hour, they get payed a reasonable amount for what they do but the limiting of the number of guides leads to another problem. If ChaCha gets extremely popular then there won’t be enough guides to satisfy the number of requests; and as being a guide is supposed to be a part time appointment, the number available will be even lower. This will not please the users.
As I said earlier, ChaCha is both a normal search engine and a search engine made personal. I don’t think Google or Yahoo have anything to worry about any time soon but I do feel that ChaCha is a very useful outlet to find specialised items of interest and is a lot quicker than searching for them yourself. Try it out for yourself. You’ll obviously get a varied response because there are many guides waiting to help you but give it a go and leave a comment.
January 9th 2007
Internet, Life, Technology
When I was given my first computer in the Christmas of 1999 the last thing that came to my mind was connecting to the internet. Back then I was more interested in just having access to a word processor for school homework and a place to play my games on. My computer then was a bulky Packard Bell with a 60MHz Pentium processor, 72MB of RAM, a slow 4x CD-ROM drive, a slow and noisy 2GB Western Digital hard drive, integrated graphics with 1MB of memory and one USB 1.1 port - I had to uninstall one game to install another so I had no intention of connecting to the internet. That is until just before I started secondary school in 2001.
It was then, in 2000, that I was introduced to the wonderful world of dial-up internet by a friend. Her dad hooked me up with a lovely and loud 56k modem and helped my parents sign me up to NTL’s offer of free 56k internet access (the one that eventually led to their bankruptcy). When I first heard that sound of the modem dialling up I was so excited. Obviously, I could only access it during certain times of the day because it used the main phone line which the telephone also required. I was happy anyway - I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t connected earlier!
In 2004, my parents gave me the opportunity to purchase a new computer to help me with my continuing studies and also because I wanted to take advantage of the broadband revolution but my Packard Bell PC did not have enough juice for NTL’s liking. Back then I wasn’t tech-savvy enough to know that Dell do suck but I was knowledgeable enough to realise that internet connectivity was going to play a major role in my purchase. The broadband revolution changed the way I looked for a computer.
Yin and Yang
The internet and the world wide web play an enormous part in our lives today whether it’s at home, at work or at school. Work and school tasks would be a lot harder to complete if we didn’t have internet access. Computers and internet access now go together hand in hand - one without the other 
wouldn’t mean anything. There are more internet service providers than you can shake a stick at and some are now taking advantage of the complimentary nature of the computer and the service they offer: internet access. ISPs such as RedTen Internet are now enticing customers with the offer of a free computer with their broadband packages. Now the offer looks genuine but the catch is you have to stay with them for a few years before you can keep the computer.
This move, and I think many more ISPs will also offer this incentive in the near future, shows us just how interconnected a computer and the internet now is. Ten years ago there was very little you could do if you were connected to the internet unless you were part of specific social circles. Now, as Bill Gates puts it, we’re moving more into the digital decade and we’re ever increasingly reliant on internet access to give us our information, to connect and interact with our friends and colleagues and to provide content for other users. Without access to the internet our computers would only be as half as useful. Although we can still edit graphics, edit video, listen to music or even play games, when used correctly the internet and the world wide web can provide some invaluable resources which could not be crammed onto our current home computer hard drives.
Conclusion
This whole post has most likely just been a long winded way to tell you how I think our computer purchases have been influenced by the internet, and access to it. When I bought my first computer seven or eight years ago, I had to intention of connecting to the net but now, when we buy a computer our first thoughts will contain a plan to get internet access.
Sorry it was so long winded (I forgot the direction of the post half way through).
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